Sometimes all you need if a warm drink to comfort you on a cool day. Chai tea is perfect in the morning to wake up your taste buds or to snuggle up with at night. The aromatic spices permeate the tea creating a rich and complex flavor. You will taste cinnamon and sweet cardamom with a hint of spice from the peppercorns. I suggest using black tea for this recipe but feel free to use your favorite. You may even want to visit a tea shop and pick something exotic and complementary to the above spices.

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Comments

That is a great staple chai tea recipe. For variety, you could add anise seed sometimes, or boil it with milk only. Also, using different teas, like Yerba Mate or Rooibos is also interesting. You can check out some ideas at http://chaiteasite.com

We grind these spices (including star anise) together to a course consistency and store in an airtight container. A pinch or two is added every time when we brew tea. saves time every time and gives consistant results every time.

Sorry, but not being American, I have no idea what you mean by, "tea leaves." I assume that you mean some sort of black tea leaves, although there are hundreds of varieties of those as well. Will you please clarify as to what leaves you are referring? Thank you.

I was surprised to see no ginger included in the recipe. For me, ginger is a huge part of chai and I can't imagine it without. Now, I've never had chai in India, so maybe I'm just used to a completely wrong taste, but I really love gingery chai :)

I never had Chai in India that didn't have ginger. Ginger gives Chai a really nice flavor. Also there is no need in using green cardamom and black cardamom as what we know as black cardamom are the black seeds inside the green cardamom pods. As for black tea, go to an Indian grocery store and ask them for CTC Assam. Using a fancy graded tea is not worth it. You want a rich and dark cup and CTC will do that.

You can also mix both the milk and the water, which I would use equal parts, add spices and tea when boiled and let it simmer at low heat for 3-5t min. You do not want to over boiled tea. Strained and then add your sweetener, we like to use raw honey.

I can consider myself an expert on this subject as one of our blends has won 1st place for the Chai category at the North American Tea Championship 2 years in a row. If you like you can follow a link to our website by clicking on my name above :)